Syria Part I: Damascus – America's Finest Ambassador

Intro

: Having already visited Jordan and Lebanon and having walked the Palestinian Heritage Trail across the West Bank, Syria was the last Arab country in the Levant that I had yet to visit. The period between when the war broke out in 2011 until sometime in 2018 when most of the rebel strongholds in the country had been recaptured by government forces hadn’t been a good time to visit for obvious reasons, and then covid happened not long after that, and then for a while they weren’t issuing visas to US citizens on account of all the sanctions the American government put in place against the Syrian one. In the spring of 2023, however, I got word from a travel company in Damascus that I’d been in contact with saying that this year the government would again start to grant tourist visas to Americans. I jumped at the opportunity and began planning this here trip for September.

: Given that Damascus International Airport has pretty much been non-functional since a little after the onset of the civil war in 2011, the main ways for visitors to arrive (legally) into the government-controlled area of the country are through the borders with Lebanon or Jordan. Of the two, Lebanon is the more popular option and the plans that I made were not an exception. The idea was to fly into Beirut and spend a few days there acclimating to the region, and then get picked up by a Lebanese driver who’d take me up over the mountains and down through the valley before dropping me off at the Masnaa border crossing into Syria. And it was from there that I’d get my Lebanese exit stamp, pick up and pay $160USD for the Syrian visa I’d been pre-approved for, cross over into Syria and get taken to Damascus by a Syrian driver.

: I was not going to Syria directly from the US, but instead traveling there right after having just walked the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland. I arrived at the airport in Copenhagen sometime around midnight and had a flight early the next morning to Stockholm from where I’d catch another flight to Beirut after a brief layover. I figured I could just find a nice quiet area in the airport to curl up and get some sleep for a few hours, but little did I know that that sort of thing is frowned upon in Denmark. Here I am after having been rudely woken up in the middle of the night by a security guard telling me that I’m not allowed to sleep on the floor.

: After arriving at my Airbnb in Beirut, Pascale (my host at Beit El Laffé Guesthouse) explained to me just how fucked-up the economy there has become since I’d first visited the country back in 2013. She said that in addition to all the banks in the country not allowing people access to their own funds, inflation has gotten out of control and some local businesses, like Spinney’s supermarkets, don’t even list prices in Lebanese Lira anymore and instead have everything priced in US dollars. So I asked her if I’d even need any Lira during my time there or if I’d be okay just using my American cash. She said it’s definitely good to have Lira, but then she warned me not to use ATMs or exchange money at the bank, and then showed me this app on her phone explaining that at banks they’d only give me 15,000 Lira for every dollar whereas on the street I’d get somewhere around 89,000 Lira per dollar. And on top of that, pretty much nowhere accepts credit card – not even Uber – so I’d need cash for absolutely everything. Like, the way Uber worked was that you order a ride how you normally would, but instead of paying digitally, you just hand that amount of Lira over to the driver upon completion of your fare. And these days those guys are driving for next to nothing. You can get an hour-long ride across the city for like five bucks. The situation for these people is impossible. If you don’t have money coming in from abroad through OMT Western Union or something like that, you’re fuckin screwed. So anyway, all this shit was giving me a headache, and to save me the trouble of trying to exchange money on the street using a language I barely know the basics of, Pascale changed a hundred bucks for me, gave me a list of recommended places to go eat and then wished me an enjoyable stay and bid me adieu.

: A Skyfall bungee jumping event near Martyr’s Square and Mohammad Al Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut

: The juice menu at Barbar restaurant in the popular commercial district of Hamra. Anyone up for a Hitler?

: Here’s Tarek, my driver on the Lebanese side, assisting me through border formalities at the Masnaa crossing before handing me off to a driver named Asser on the Syrian side. And while I was being passed off to Asser, Tarek was receiving a handful of foreigners brought back to the border by Asser who’d just finished their tour around Syria. These two dudes have their system down pat. They coordinate well with one another and they know exactly whose palms they need to grease in order to efficiently get tourists from one side of the Lebanese/Syrian border to the other without being hassled.

: Like most men in the Levant, Tarek thinks seatbelts are for chumps. And there’s nothing worse than how all the new cars out there have that pesky alarm going off reminding drivers to buckle up. So to combat this inconvenient life-saving technology, some stores in Lebanon sell these buckle-shaped pieces of metal that you can clip in to trick your car into thinking that your seatbelt is fastened when it’s actually not. It’s a win-win for everybody…until you actually get into an accident and go head-first through the windshield.

: Sometime late in the afternoon on the first day, my guide Akel Abou Nasr (the guy giving the thumbs-up) and I went to the office of Marrota Travel & Tourism to pay a quick visit to Ayoub Smadi (the owner of the company, the guy on the phone). It was here in cash, in person that I paid what I owed for the trip. These days, as an American at least, in order to get a visa to visit Syria you need someone to sponsor you – a governmentally recognized tour company that will take responsibility for your actions and whereabouts while you’re in the country. Back in May of 2023, Ayoub submitted my visa application and said it’d probably take around 6 to 8 weeks before he hears whether or not I’d received a security clearance to visit the country. A couple months later I got an email from him telling me I’d been approved, and that’s when I bought my flights. Although I was happy with Ayoub’s service, I must note that my guide Akel – who was with me from start to finish of my visit to Syria and with whom I developed a friendship during our time together – had not too long ago started his own tourism company, and if I ever were to go back again I’d probably just go directly with him. He can apply for visas and arrange the border transportation and all that, and can be reached @cometasteandseetravel on Instagram.

: Just like in neighboring Lebanon, the economy in Syria is in dire straits as inflation continues to spiral out of control. In March 2011, the official exchange rate was around 47 Syrian Pounds to $1USD. As of May 2023, it was around 7500 Syrian Pounds to $1USD. In recent years, the Syrian government has printed larger-value banknotes to ease the need for absurd amounts of smaller-value banknotes to make simple purchases. In 2010, they released 50, 100 and 200-pound denominations. Then along came the 500, 1000 and 2000-pounders. And most recently, in 2019, they released a 5000-pound note. What you’re seeing in the photo here is the Syrian Pound equivalent (in 2000-pound notes) of the $100USD that I exchanged with Ayoub so I’d have some spending cash to make small purchases around the country.

Damascus Day 1

: Here I am walking to my hotel with my guide Akel whom I’d just met shortly after being dropped off by and saying goodbye to Asser at Bab Touma, which is one of the seven gates of Old Damascus. Up ahead on the wall in front of us – and all over Syria, to be fair – is a picture of President Bashar al-Assad. Two memories regarding the president stand out from the car ride I’d just taken to get to where I am in the photo. The first was right when we were leaving the border. There was a checkpoint where a bunch of Syrian soldiers were searching everybody’s vehicle. While some other guys dug through the car’s interior, one soldier asked me where I was from. I said the US. His face lit up with delight and he gave me a warm welcoming “ahlen wa sahlen.” He then asked how old I was. “Thirty-five,” I said. “I hope you make a hundred years,” he replied. I wished him the same and then he directed his attention elsewhere. A couple minutes later as we were about to pull away, the same guy trotted back up to the car window and added, “Hey…Bashar Syria or no Syria. Okay?” And then we were on our way. The second memory I have is of Asser talking about how hard life is in Syria because of American sanctions and also how the US started the war by funding rebel groups they were hoping would overthrow their enemy al-Assad, and then how later those very same groups ended up turning into ISIS and using their American weapons and American training to kill American soldiers.

: Beit al-Mamlouka Hotel in the old city of Damascus

: My cozy room at Beit al-Mamlouka

: The hotel pet. This turtle just pretty much chilled out on the floor of the courtyard at Beit al-Mamlouka the whole time I was there.

: As we were wandering around Old Damascus…

: …we were invited by this dude named Jamil to come and have some tea and bread in his shop here.

: Syrian coin collection Jamil wanted me to take a look at

: While Akel and Jamil were talking in Arabic, I wandered around checking out his collection, this painting included. To his dismay, there really wasn’t anything that I liked enough to wanna buy from him.

: Making our way through the old city of Damascus towards the Umayyad Mosque. On the right is yet another giant photo of President Bashar al-Assad. Bashar actually wasn’t the one originally slated to succeed the rule of his father, Hafez al-Assad, which lasted from 1971 until his death in the year 2000. That honor actually belonged to his brother Basil who died in a car accident while driving 150 miles per hour on his way to the Damascus Airport back in January of 1994. At the time, Bashar was in London working on his postgraduate studies to become an ophthalmologist. Following the death of his brother, however, he was recalled to Syria where he assumed the role of heir apparent and they began grooming him to take over upon then eventual passing of his father.

: Some paintings for sale on the street in Old Damascus. Before going on this trip, I read five books on Syria so I wouldn’t show up to the country feeling like a total ignoramus. For a basic historical understanding of the country as it exists today, I started with “Syria: A Modern History” by David Lesch. For a better understanding of the war and the things regular people experienced during it, I read “No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria” and “Sisters of the War: Two Remarkable True Stories of Survival and Hope in Syria” both by journalist Rania Abouzeid. I also read “Man at the Airport: How Social Media Saved My Life” by Hassan al-Kontar and the fictional piece “Death is Hard Work” by Khaled Khalifa. And I didn’t read this one specifically for this trip, but a couple years ago I read “The Crusades through Arab Eyes” by Amin Maalouf which also provided a foundational historical context of the region.

: Dude demonstrating for me how to use the tools he was selling to hollow out zucchinis and how to cut potatoes in interesting ways

: I spent a decent amount of time standing here admiring the entranceway to Umayyad Mosque

: The site of Umayyad Mosque was originally used during the Iron Age as a temple dedicated to Hadad-Ramman, the Aramaean god of thunderstorms and rain. When Damascus was conquered by the Romans in 64BC, they converted the site into the Temple of Jupiter – Jupiter being their own god of sky and thunder. A few hundred years later, in 391, emperor Theodosius I made the temple a Christian cathedral. And then in 634, Damascus was captured by Muslim Arab forces and eventually, in 705, the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I started turning the cathedral into a mosque to accommodate the ever-growing number of Muslim worshippers in Damascus.

: Lovely mosaics

: Intricate details

: When we walked into this room at the mosque, there was a guy doubled over with his head stuck into this square cavity in the wall mumbling a bunch of prayers. After he went away, I asked Akel why the guy was doing that. He explained that this mosque has a shrine that some people believe contains the head of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Husayn ibn Ali, that was brought here after he was decapitated during the Battle of Karbala. Other people believed it was moved somewhere else a long time ago. Whether or not the head is actually there, what that guy was doing was paying his respects to Husayn. On a similar note, Ummayad Mosque is also believed by some to be the permanent resting place of the head belonging to John the Baptist, who is known in Islam as the Prophet Yahya.

: An inside look at one of the oldest mosques in the world

: A baptismal font leftover from the days when this place had been a cathedral dedicated to St. John the Baptist

: Directly across from the entrance to Umayyad Mosque (which you’re looking back towards through the ruins of the old Roman Temple of Jupiter in the photo here) is the entrance to Al-Hamidiyeh Souq

: Al-Hamidiyeh Souq dates back to the Ottoman period and is approximately 2000 feet long, 50 feet wide and is covered by a 30-something-foot-tall arched metal roof

: The traditionally dressed Abu Mohammed sings folkloric songs while selling homemade tamarind juice around the souq

: Clothing vendor hiding out to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the souq and scroll through his phone

: Located within Al-Hamidiyeh Souq, the ever popular Bakdash ice cream parlor was founded in 1895

: The primary ingredients of Middle Eastern ice cream – or “booza” as it is known – are milk, cream, sugar, mastic sap and sahleb. Unlike other ice creams that are churned to achieve a dense creamy texture, booza is made through a process of pounding in a freezer drum that leads to a stretchy, taffy-like finished product. They say that people in this region have been making and eating booza since at least 1500AD.

: Dude serving up booza to patrons with a healthy handful of pistachios sprinkled on top

: Bronze statue of local hero Saladin not too far outside the souq. The statue was unveiled by former president Hafez al-Assad in 1993, marking the 800th anniversary of Saladin’s death

: Back to ambling around the old city

: At some point we stopped for a snack and I tried a dish called “fatteh” which consists mainly of chickpeas mixed into a garlicky, tahini yogurt sauce with some pickled vegetables on the side. I was admittedly not the biggest fan of fatteh.

: Syrian Starbucks

: Down the block from Syrian Starbucks and the place where I got the fatteh had been this bakery where people come up and put their orders in through this window. Akel asked permission and…

: …we got the go-ahead to come on inside and have a closer look at their operation. On the right you got the guy making the dough, in the middle is the guy sticking the bread into the fiery oven there, and to the far left of this photo would be the location of the window from the previous photo.

: There’s Akel paying his and my fee to ride in the back of a public-transport, shared microbus known as a “serfees.” At the time of my visit, Akel said that $1USD was equal to about 13,500 Syrian pounds. He said that your Average Joe makes about 200,000 Syrian pounds a month. And he said that your typical serfees ride around the city costs about 1000 pounds per fare, but that the one we were taking that goes up into the mountains on the outskirts of the city costs 3000 pounds per fare.

: After we got dropped off by the serfees at the base of the mountain, we began climbing up these stairs built into the side of Jabal Qasiyun towards a shrine called Maqam Al-Arba’in. We had no intention of visiting the shrine, we only wanted to catch the sunset, but as you can see here it was already down below the horizon when we were still making our way up to the top.

: Akel and I ended up sitting on the side of Jabal Qasiyun for a while after darkness had fallen. It was while we were here that he told me how he ended up leaving for several years during the height of the war. He said he spent some time in Spain where his uncle was living and had also spent some time volunteering to help out at the refugee camps in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley just across the border from Syria. With the sprawling panorama in front of us, he pointed out different landmarks around the city and showed me just how close rebel forces had gotten during the war and how they’d spend all day indiscriminately shooting mortars and rockets that would hit normal people going about their daily lives. Akel explained that in 2014 or 2015 when he was back in Damascus visiting his family, he decided to count how many explosions he heard around the city in one day. The total was 150. And then in 2015 when he was back volunteering in Lebanon, his sister had taken their parents out of the house to go to lunch one day. While they were out, a bomb landed on the roof of their house and caused great damage, but at least no one was killed. Of all the violence, he said that you become numb to it. He said that the numbness is like a scar that would begin to heal when he was away living in Spain or Lebanon, but here it was necessary to go about your day-to-day routine. That, and faith. Akel said that, “It is better to be in the most dangerous place in God’s will than in the safest place out of God’s will.”

: Woman buying goods from a shop at the base of Jabal Qasiyun

: Dinner at Naranj restaurant. The dish on the top left is “sheesh bil-fakhara” which is chicken cubes cooked in a creamy, cheesy sauce typically served over rice. The top dish is “koussa ablama” which are zucchinis stuffed with lamb and simmered in some kind of yogurt sauce. On the right is “maajooket lahmeh” which are charcoal-grilled lamb patties stuffed with cheese and peppers. And at the bottom is “shorbet al-adas” or lentil soup.

: The menu at Naranj had these couple different Mark Twain quotes in it. The one should go, “…and amaze the world with their grandeur – and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given over to the owls and the bats.”

: At night when I was hanging out at Beit al-Mamlouka, I met this group from the town of Sadad (two of whom now live in America – Fateh who works as an engineer that crash-tests vehicles in California and his mother Najah whose name means “success”) that invited me to play cards with them. The game they were playing was one in English that I know as “Bullshit,” but in Arabic they were calling it “kathab” which means “liar.” They were fun. I had a good time with these guys.

Damascus Day 2

: The breakfast spread they put out for each guest at Beit al-Mamlouka hotel. A lot of it is really good, but I especially like the zeit and zaatar combo which are the two bowls at the bottom of the photo just “northeast” of the plate with the knife and the fork on it. I’d take a piece of bread and first dunk it in the olive oil (zeit) and then dip it in the zaatar (herbal blend composed primarily of thyme) and then stuff it into my face and begin turning it into poop.

: The first stop of the day was a visit to Qasr Al-Azem. The palace was built during the Ottoman Era in 1749 to house As’ad Pasha Al-Azem, who at the time had been serving as governor of Damascus.

: The palace had two main wings, the salamlik and the haramlik. The salamlik was the public area consisting of the courtyard and formal halls where the governor would receive all outside guests, and the haramlik was the private family part of the residence where the baths and the kitchen were. Pretty sure that this rotating window thing was used to pass stuff like food between the haramlik and the salamlik

: I thought that this dummy they had set up in one of the reception halls looked quite like Jonathan Quayle Higgins from the original Magnum, P.I. series that aired in the eighties

: Mirror shot of me and Akel at Al-Azem Palace

: A close-up of the intricate woodwork from the previous photo

: After visiting Al-Azem Palace, we spent some time walking around Al-Buzuriyah Souq which is famous for the spices sold there

: Spice boys

: Neatly arranged spice selection

: Located along Al-Buzuriyah Souq is this here building known as Khan As’ad Pasha. Like the palace we’d just visited, this “khan” was also named after former Ottoman governor As’ad Pasha Al-Azem who oversaw the project’s completion back in 1752. Now, let’s unpack this a little. First of all, what is a khan? Well, a khan is a caravanserai. What is a caravanserai? A caravanserai is an inn where merchants (and their animals) on the Silk Road and other popular trade routes could stop and rest for the night. Back in the day, the first floor was dedicated to commerce and storage, and the second floor was dedicated to lodging. Today it’s used as a quiet cafe where you can come and get a break from all the noise and activity of the adjacent souq.

: As we sat and rested in Khan As’ad Pasha, I ordered a cup of “zhourat.” I generally don’t like hot drinks, but actually enjoyed this herbal tea enough to buy a bag from Al-Buzuriyah Souq to take home and give to my mom as a gift.

: After visiting the souq, Akel invited me to his family home for lunch. On the right are his parents and on the left are his wife and daughter. Akel said that he met his wife Hannah, an American, while volunteering at the refugee camps in Lebanon. They started off as friends, but eventually fell in love and got married. To honor this unlikely union between citizens of countries that are sworn enemies, they decided to name their daughter an Arabic word meaning “reconciliation.”

: A statue of Jesus on top of a building as seen on our way to visit the Chapel of Saint Ananias. The chapel was underground and not well-lit, so none of my photos turned out good which is why I won’t be including any of them here. That said, way back in the early days of Christianity, this chapel is said to be the place where Ananias baptized Saul of Tarsus who went on to become Paul the Apostle.

: E=MC who gives a shit

: There was a wedding celebration happening on this day and, man…was that limo driver having a tough time negotiating the tight streets of Old City Damascus in that there stretch job.

: Café Al-Qishla – where the young folks come to hang out, drink freshly-squeezed juice and smoke argileh

: Artsy shitter at Café Al-Qishla

: After putting in an order at this stand called Shawarma Sharif right near Bab Touma, I asked Akel, “Since you grew up in this area and have so many memories around here, what’s the first thing that comes to mind as you stand here and look around?” And he replied, “Now that you mention it, I’m thinking of the time back when I was in Boy Scouts. We’d get up really early sometimes when it was still dark out and be loading up the vehicles by Bab Touma to go on trips out of the city. And we’d normally pass a bunch of bags up onto the roof of the bus and tie them down so there’d be more room for everybody on the inside. And this one time, one of the guys went up onto the roof to tie down some of the bags and everyone forgot about him and piled onto the bus and we started driving away on the highway. And I guess the guy was yelling and banging on the roof of the bus and nobody heard him. Thankfully we had cell phones at that time. The guy was holding on with one hand while he called one of us with the other hand to let us know that he was still up on the roof and wanted to get down.”

: Chicken shawarma washed down with a type of yogurt drink called laban – a winning combo

: After I finished my shawarma, I said goodnight to Akel who began to walk towards his home. I didn’t really feel like going back to the hotel yet, so I went to go grab some ice cream and then…

: …I ended up meeting and wandering around the old city for a while with this chick from Latakia named Nura who was new to the city. She said she was a personal trainer and that she liked to work out every day and party every night. So if you’re in Damascus and find yourself in need of a high-energy fitness instructor who may or may not have hints of whatever she was drinking the night before on her breath when she’s barking inspirational shit at you during your morning session, you can contact her on Instagram @nur_nur10